LOS ANGELES -- The state Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence of "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, who is on death row for 13 murders he committed during a crime spree that terrorized the Southland in the 1980s.

In a 104-page ruling, the state's highest court unanimously rejected Ramirez's claim that numerous errors were made in his trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Ramirez, who is now 46 and on death row at San Quentin State Prison, was sentenced to die for the crimes after a high-profile trial.

Along with the murders, he was convicted of 30 other counts -- including attempted murder, rape and first-degree burglary -- for the nighttime killings between June 1984 and August 1985 that made the self-proclaimed devil worshipper one of California's most notorious criminals.

Ramirez's appellate attorney, Geraldine S. Russell, told the California Supreme Court at a hearing in June that Ramirez did not receive a fair trial.

Among the defense's contentions were that two of Ramirez's trial attorneys, Daniel Hernandez and Arturo Hernandez, were not qualified for such a massive case, that Ramirez's mental competence should have been probed, and that the trial court erred in rejecting his motion for a change of venue in his trial.

Associate Justice Carlos R. Moreno, writing on behalf of the panel, rejected all of those claims.

Ramirez committed murders in Glassell Park, Rosemead, Whittier, Monterey Park, Monrovia, Arcadia, Glendale, Sun Valley and Diamond Bar. His crime spree also extended to San Francisco and Orange County, where an engineer was shot but survived an attack in which his fiancee was raped.

In one slaying, the former drifter from El Paso gouged out a woman's eyes. Just over a year after being caught by a group of angry East Los Angeles residents, he called a guard over to his jail cell and showed photographs of two of the murder victims.

At his sentencing hearing, Ramirez rocked back and forth and turned to grin at the audience, vowing that he would be "avenged."

"You maggots made me sick, hypocrites one and all. We are all expendable for a cause, and no one knows that better than those who kill for policy, clandestinely or openly, as do the governments of the world which kill in the name of God and country and for whatever else they deem appropriate," Ramirez said then.

"You don't understand me," he said just before being sentenced to death. "You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil."

I remember the panic he instilled in Southern Californians during his murder spree. One of his murders took place within a block of my home.

It was a hot summer. In those days many in the area didn't have great air-conditioning. At night, they cracked the windows for a little comfort.

The night this guy hit near our house, my wife thought she heard someone trying our windows. Instead the guy broke into the house of an elderly couple and literally slaughtered them. There was blood all over their home.

Just let the public have this guy, they'll know what to do even if our officials can't figure it out.

Yep, I was living in San Francisco at the time, feeling pretty safe, when suddenly he showed up in my neighborhood and slaughtered an elderly Chinese couple. This guy's a demon straight out of hell if there ever was one.

Ramirez, who is now 46 and on death row at San Quentin State Prison, was sentenced to die for the crimes after a high-profile trial.

THIS IS NOT JUSTICE.

The British had absolutely the right sense of things. A quick trial, a quick appeal, to be quickly followed by a swift execution. This, and ONLY this, has been PROVEN to be a complete and total deterrent to violent crime.

15
posted on 08/07/2006 5:59:12 PM PDT
by detsaoT
(Proudly not "dumb as a journalist.")

The Brits? So did "we", at one time. The classic case, the fellow who tried to shoot president-elect Roosevelt in 1932. He did shoot Mayor "Tony" Cermak, of Chicago, who lingered for a couple weeks before dying. The perp was tried and convicted, midstream for murder, and sentenced to death, executed - in less than a month.

Read a book about him. Scary stuff. The people who caught him were almost all Mexican, and they hated him because he, being Mexican, had caused them a lot of grief. He was, IIRC, rescued by the police, or they might have killed him. The woman referenced in the article who had her eyes gouged out actually had Ramirez, as she got to a shotgun and tried to shoot him. Unfortunately, her husband had unloaded the shotgun because their grandchildren were visiting. Ramirez shot the husband in the head while he was asleep. According to the book, Ramirez got a lot of fan mail, particuarly from women. Many sent him nude photos, one of herself nude laying in a casket. Some had fantasies of helping him commit murders, others of being murdered by him.

The book went into some detail about some of the things he did, and they were evil beyond belief. I won't recount them here.

By the way, the police had gotten some footprints from some homes Ramirez had broken into. It was their first break in the case. Dianne Feinstein, then mayor of San Francisco, held a press conference and revealed this information. Ramirez dumped the shoes.

20
posted on 08/07/2006 6:45:26 PM PDT
by Richard Kimball
(The most important thing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, everything else is easy.)

(Obviously, our criminal justice system was modelled after the British Colonial system which preceded it. My point being, the panti-waists who are currently administering "justice" in this country are WAY off base.)

21
posted on 08/07/2006 6:47:52 PM PDT
by detsaoT
(Proudly not "dumb as a journalist.")

"Weren't there other murderers who gave up on their appeals and their lawyers just did their appeals anyway?"

McVeigh is the only one I've heard of that's given up on his appeals at the federal level, though their have been some others convicted at the state level that have.

You're partly right on the point that their lawyers go on appealing anyway. Usually what happens is the defendant's lawyer appeals the defendant's decision to stop pursuing appeals based upon some form of mental incompetence (such as severe depression).

The result of this is usually a judge appoints a psychiatrist to examine the defendant, the psychiatrist declares him competent, and the appeal is dismissed. There may be exceptions to this, but I'm not aware of any.

33
posted on 08/08/2006 12:56:53 PM PDT
by Moral Hazard
(The "missing links" in evolution are nothing compared to the extraneous links in intelligent design.)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.